Floral Triumphs Summer 2016

Whimsical Tarot

I have found it less challenging and more enjoyable to maintain our patio garden this summer; and in spite of prior experience, ''hope springs ...'' yaddayadda ... I planted a few types of seeds, mainly bought on sale. Most impactful (apart from the French and Runner beans standing at well over 8 foot high and who belong firmly in Titch's domain) was the amaranthus, a.ka. Love Lies Bleeding.

The seeds are tiny, and my record with seeds isn't good, so I threw caution to the wind along with the seeds themselves, and sowed them all.

Of course, they all germinated, so I gave some seedlings away, and since I can't be fiddling with teeny stuff, planted some in kind of clumps - I figured, Nature will thin them for me. It worked:

That said little yellow flower in the middle ? That's Thunbergia (Black-Eyed Susie) of which I also had many sprouts, but when planted out refused stubbornly to really go upwards like the voracious climber it claimed to be on the packet.

The clary sage and the cerinthe did not emerge; the nasturtiums looked fabulous draping from my front planter - for about a day until the blackfly found them. I bugsprayed them but I think that just overwhelmed the plants, who crumpled and withered accusingly.

I missed the opportunity to take a photo of my dahlia in its full glory (the pic was taken a month ago when my Asiatics were also beginning to bloom) - it was maybe £2/US$2.62 to buy the tuber, but man, you get some bang for your buck ! It flowers forever ! Well, OK several weeks, anyway. My mother didn't like them - along with gladioli, she thought they were vulgar, but they're a great splash of longlasting color. Now if they were scented ...

But my favorite this summer happened accidentally: I had a couple of pelargoniums (which us oldies like to still call geraniums) - including a scented-leaf variety -  and a random hardy fuchsia hanging around, so I bunged them all into a pot, and look what happened:

I have very carefully tried to avoid any photos showing the actual patio slabs, because it is in desperate need of weeding, which is Someone Else's job always and forever and ever amen. I'll let you know how that goes ...

FO Friday 17/15: Tragedy

Tarot of Durer

I thought I'd find the original rather than a cover for you - and just tell you that my kids sing it as 'Tragedy ... when your butt gets stuck in a monster truck it's Tragedy''.

You're welcome.






So anyway, let me explain why you're going to have that earworm all today. I'm not sure that I will even need any words:

So you want me to wallow in it and tell you the sad story ? 

That's mean, making me re-live the experience so soon - but seeing as how it's you ... this is what happens when Titch sits down on your knitting and then it gets caught on his great big fat banana fingers. This had been 46 rows of the Sirin Bird Shawl, approx. 500 stitches in this row, of which half are OFF the needle.

This is what it looks like now:

Yeah, that's what 47 grams of size 8/0 beads looks like when it's no longer threaded painstakingly on a few thousand individual stitches.

What's that ?

Yes, I agree, I did do a remarkable job cleaning up the blood - not a stain in sight. But there's a bump in the patio paving.

Random Roundup

Fantastic Menagerie Tarot

I'm feeling a little low today, mainly because the half-term holiday is over - Mini Diva is back at school, Titch is back at work. I have only Destructo Boy to console me, and he is welded to his tablet and 'Clash of Clans'.

Wilhelmina passed her MOT, the kids' cousin D. came to stay, we went to the beach, the kids went swimming a couple of times (different leisure centres), there was a sleepover, they went to the funfair with my friend K. - it was Destructo Boy's first time as he is finally old/tall enough, and it turns out he is as fearless as Mini Diva. There has been cricket and tennis.

It was a week of weatherly contrasts, too. There was this:

And there was this:

Noah, Noah - what is a cubit ??

 But there was no football. The team Destructo Boy played for has fallen apart owing to adults behaving like toddlers - I am told there has been lots of stirring and back-biting, resulting in the main coach flouncing off resigning having cherry-picked the boys from his clique of favored parents. The squad has collapsed: what is left is being run by a couple of fathers who have some innovative ideas for training, but who lack experience and the ability to impose any kind of discipline. 

If I sound annoyed, it is because I am - Titch and I, as openly confessed non-football types, were not amongst the clique, and so Destructo Boy now has no team - we withdrew him from the ruins of the squad as he will have no opportunity to grow his skills.

I think what has amazed me the most is the behavior of the adults involved: parents of kids on the A team sneering at parents of kids on the B team, committee politics, lack of support from the main club - I am hoping that it is a football thing as opposed to a sport thing. On the plus side, now we have Friday evenings and Saturday mornings free to try other things which might actually set a good example for their youth sections.

Sorry about that - I am apparently not as over the whole thing as I thought I was.

So anyway. Our potatoes are planted, along with some peas, beans, sweetcorn, tomatoes, lettuce, strawberries and one solitary pumpkin plant. There had been 6 pepper plants, but snails reduced them to 0 overnight. I am awaiting delivery on 48 lavender plants ( a deal where they were free if you paid for delivery) which will form a nice scented hedgey thing in the front garden. All that I am on the look-out for now is a plum tree for planting in autumn. I need to mention that Titch has done most of the planting, nearly all of the watering, and all of the weeding. Yes, I know !

There has been knitting - I am taking part in a new MKAL by Kitman Figueroa, which should be even more interesting since I got the name muddled in my head, so I've been thinking of it as 'Summer Flowers'. When it should be, 'Wild Flowers'. So I may have chosen a totally inappropriate yarn .... but I am looking at that as part of the mystery: will it work, or not.

And now I must away, today's chore is to order Mini Diva's high school sweater and blouses so I can collect them at her 'Transition Day' in a month's time .... and hope they might still fit come September.

FO Friday 51: The Wheel Turns

THE END OF SUMMER

The summer days are fading, as they must
From endless hours to short and fleeting light
The bird's once bright, immortal tune, now cries
A melancholy aura to the dusk
The children fiercely climb, and dream, and race
Before their wild and unchained days depart
And yet beneath the zeal lies a half heart
For there isn't time, there's only enough space
The sun seems low, a hazy orange sphere
Now reminiscing sweetly of the days
When endlessly before you summer lay
And as in the deep, crimson dusk you stir
Your soul joins with the birds in wistful brood
Crying for lost summer days, for childhood

[author's name removed by her own request, received via email 26 Sept. 2011]


The wheel of the seasons definitely feels like it's turned this week: what with the gales, rain, clouds, gray skies and chilly evenings, it seems like a switch was flicked: beginning of term = autumn. And looking at our patio reinforces that:


May 2011


end July 2011


beginning Sept. 2011

It's clearly time to pull the summer bedding and get ready for planting spring bulbs, and winter/spring bedding.

Another FO today is a batch of Aztec Queen Soap: loaded with cocoa butter, a creamy mix of vanilla and chocolate makes this a smooth and special soap ....



Head over to Tami's Amis to see who else is talking about Autumn ....